A call for participants in a satellite meeting of the 10th World Congress of Bioethics, Singapore on the 27TH JULY 2010, Sponsored by the Wellcome Trust. The Wellcome Trust is pleased to invite applications for participation in a one-day meeting on the concept of community in bioethics. The meeting will explore different understandings of the […]
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Terry Pratchett Shakes Hands with Death
This is probably a bit de trop, because I suspect that many watched it as broadcast – but those who haven’t seen Terry Pratchett‘s Dimbleby Lecture can watch it here; I believe that most things on the iplayer get taken down after a while, but I can’t see any indication of there being a limited […]
On the Lack of Socialised Healthcare
It’s very easy for a European to feel very smug about socialised medicine. Maybe the American system isn’t as bad as all that. Maybe we should be a bit more open about its merits. And maybe we should, in the process, ignore cases like that of JoAnn Knutson. Knutson was 72, and had a fall […]
Killing, Letting Die, and Epistemology
David Shoemaker has an interesting post on PEASoup about the epistemology of advance directives. Starting from a fairly standard thought-experiment about an older, dementing person who wants to accept treatment that her younger, pre-demented person had refused, he adds to the standard metaphysical arguments a claim that the real puzzle for ADs isn’t metaphysical, it’s […]
It is official – Ethicists will still be here in 20 years time
The UK government sponsored science web-site for young people Science: [So what? So everything] has paid some futurologists to come up with 20 new jobs that will exist in 20 years time. Among the nano-medics and avatar managers you can also find the ‘New science’ ethicist’ described in the following way: “‘New science’ ethicist As […]
This may be the last post I ever make on this blog…
Saturday morning, 30th January 2010, I – along with many other people – will be taking a massive overdose. As it happens, I’ll be doing so in a seminar room at the Wellcome Trust, so there will probably be lots of medical sorts nearby. I’ll tell them not to intervene. I may even encourage them to […]
The ethics of Elderly Mums in the News
By David Hunter Daniel Sokol has written this thoughtful piece about the yuck factor and Elderly Mums conceiving children late in life via IVF. […]
Questions, questions…
In response to the post below about circumcision, “IntactByDefault” asked a number of questions. I think that they merit a thread of their own, although I’ve touched on some of the issues before. Is it not the case that, short of legislation, the role of bioethicists is to put a check on the potentially unethical […]
The Freethinker: Circumcision “should be abhorred”
Someone once told me that, if you want a paper to be heard by a large, fractious audience, make sure it’s about circumcision. Peter Breibart considers it over at The Freethinker, and he’s not a happy bunny. You may have heard that there are medical advantages for circumcision – and it is true that the […]
Obituary – Dr Jennifer Gunning
It is with great sorrow that I bring you news of the death of Dr Jennifer Gunning last week. Jenny was my colleague for more than 5 years at Cardiff University and was instrumental in setting up the Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society (CCELS). Jenny was educated as a structural biologist and later went […]